Treasurer
Joe Hockey
properly made economic growth the focus of discussions at this weekend’s G20 deliberations, but a question remains: growth at what cost in the light of brutal structural realities exemplified by this week’s announcement of the Port Henry aluminium smelter closure?

Perversely, Alcoa’s decision will not necessarily be unwelcome to a government committed to reducing Australia’s carbon footprint by Direct Action, or phasing down heavily polluting industries. The US company’s decision was not contingent on a repeal – or otherwise – of the carbon tax.

However, in a wider sense in its role as G20 chair for 2014 Australia would not be serving its interests by isolating itself from global efforts to counter the effects of climate change leading up to the 2015 Paris summit. This event – whose importance is hard to overstate – will trump the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.

International Monetary Fund head
Christine Lagarde
drew attention this week to reputational issues involved in Australia stepping back from its role as a global leader in efforts to build a climate consensus, bearing in mind Labor’s own stumbling efforts in putting in place an emissions trading scheme. The scheme foundered when European carbon prices collapsed. “Australia was pioneering in this field, and I would hope that it continues to be a pioneer,’’ said Lagarde.

This is not a matter of whether you believe the science of global warming or not, but of what prudential measures might be taken to lessen the risk to future generations of weather disturbances caused by anthropomorphic climatic change. Dealing with the problem is a risk management exercise. In essence, argument revolves around actuarial calculations about the risks of action versus inaction. This is separate from debating points about whether you’re a “warmist’’ or not a “warmist’’, a “denier’’ or not a “denier’’, a “sceptic’’ or not a “sceptic’’. We should all be sceptics, and that goes for the arguments being advanced by zealots advocating on either side.

On the matter of scepticism versus denial we had the odd happenstance this week of
Dick Warburton
, newly appointed head of a review into the Renewable Energy Target, both denying he was a sceptic and confirming he was, in the space of two newspaper paragraphs.

Environment Minister
Greg Hunt
insisted in an interview that Warburton’s “sceptical’’ review was not simply window-dressing to get rid of the RET altogether.

Australia risks being less relevant

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We shall see where this all ends, but in the confines of the G20 and other such institutions, Australia, in its apparent turning away from global market-based solutions, risks making its voice less relevant in international councils.

This does not necessarily render the new government’s approach unsustainable or wrong. Respectable arguments can be made for not being out in front given recent experience. Hunt asserts that the Coalition’s “Direct Action plan’’ will deliver on Australia’s commitment to cut emissions by 5 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020, but that is no longer the point.

The question is whether Australia will embrace larger reduction targets in line with trends internationally. World leaders, including
Barack Obama
of the US,
Xi Jinping
of China,
Angela Merke
l of Germany,
David Cameron
of Britain and
Francois Hollande
of France, are talking about significantly larger reductions, possibly up to minus 25 per cent.

These are aspirational goals, and in China’s case clearly not realisable given a 130 per cent spike in energy consumption between 2000 and 2010, and its massive dependence on coal-fired power stations. The Chinese account for about half of global coal consumption.

Hunt himself has not excluded matching commitments by other developed countries, but is wary of discussing numbers. The government’s first priority is to get rid of the carbon tax after July 1 and with it an internationally linked global trading scheme, and replace it with a reverse auction model in which companies would compete for tenders to reduce emissions.

It remains to be seen whether this scheme works, and at what cost. Estimates of $3 billion in Direct Action may prove insufficient.

In the meantime, the government would be advised to pay attention to trends internationally, including recent agreements between the world’s largest emitters – the US and China – to collaborate on mitigation measures.

The environmental worm has turned in China. Space precludes even a partial description, but interested readers could go to the Council on Foreign Relations website and access writer/editor
Beina Xu
’s summation – China’s Environmental Crisis – published on February 5. Just as the El Niño and La Niña-affected weather appears to be unusually changeable these days so, it seems, is the ground in the global debate on climate change shifting.